Volunteers needed to board up houses near another Detroit school

A lot can be learned from volunteers sweating side by side, boarding up abandoned houses with one common goal. A volunteer project held Aug. 25 to board up 100 vacant houses near Osborn High School in Detroit in one day proved that people will show up in droves to make the streets safer for children and families. And now, a second 100 Houses project is in the works for Oct. 27 in the neighborhood around Cody High on the city's west side. Ramona Washington, researcher-program director of the AmeriCorps Urban Safety Project at Wayne State University's Center for Urban Studies, said residents get to see good intentions in action through the 100 Houses projects and the one-house-per-week board-ups that her group tackles near Wayne State. "When the residents can see it, they can feel it," said Washington.